Vail Daily letter: Such a surprise

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I don't know about you, but the shocking result of last week's election hit me the same way as the O.J. Simpson verdict did years ago. And the more I thought about it, the more I realized that the two events actually have a lot of similarities.

In both cases, the logical, expected outcome by most intelligent, rational people did not occur. Instead we ended up with a shocking, incomprehensible verdict by the O.J. jury and by the nation's voters.

In the O.J. trial, the prosecution presented what just about everyone thought was irrefutable, ironclad proof of Simpson's guilt. Similarly, in the recent election, the Romney campaign seemed to have made a compelling argument that he would be vastly superior to Obama in the biggest crisis facing this country at the moment, that of our economic crisis. However, in both situations, logic, facts and common sense were trumped by things such as race, disregard for the evidence, and people making just a terribly wrong decision for the good of this country.

It is really difficult to make sense out of either event other than to conclude that as a nation, we are in very sad shape. Like some of the other truly tragic and memorable events in our nation's history, such as the JFK assassination, the Challenger disaster or 9/11, the recent election made me really depressed and fearful for what's happening to America and where we're heading.

What is really tragic, however, is that for the first time in this country's history, the really critical issues facing us were overshadowed by "social issues." The election demonstrated that some people were willing to overlook Obama's dismal record over the last four years on improving the economy. It has been coming gradually but we may now have actually reached the tipping point, where there are now more people receiving government aid than contributing to the system. We've gone from JFK's exhortation of "Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country" to far too many people seeking to exploit this country and their fellow citizens.

In just the short time since the election, we have already witnessed a preview of what the next four years holds. The financial markets have been plunging, the latest job report was dreadful and we have once again seen Obama's incompetence and deceit in his handling the Libya situation on full display. Obama's cabinet reminds me of the old sitcom "F Troop." Most of these people couldn't run a lemonade stand, but they're running our government.

And after what a good man like Romney just went through, facing a completely biased media and a full-blown effort to demonize him by the Obama team, one can readily understand why so few honest people with real leadership abilities would want to put themselves through this process. So we end up with a former "community organizer" like Barack Obama as our president. God help us!